Elizabeth Gilbert offered this in regards to stepping into the new year: “Don’t try. Just respond.” If we go this route, then our main objective becomes finding ourselves in a state in which we can respond truthfully to the present moment. I happen to believe that the practice of yoga — union of mind, body, spirit, breath helps bring us to the present moment and into alignment with our Truth so that we may respond to it with easeful authenticity.
The start of the new year/decade is a time in which people often set out to reconnect with their why, their motivation, their intention, their Truth, but it is certainly not the only time in which this is possible. We don’t get just one chance every 10 years or even once every 365 days, but rather I believe we receive the opportunity to bring our awareness to our existing connection to ourselves and the present moment between 17,000 – 23,000 times every single day. On average, we inhale and exhale between about that many times per day, and with every breath we take we are gifted the opportunity to receive fresh inspiration, “start anew,” make a conscious choice, and step into alignment.
There is a natural pause built into the breath right between the end of the exhale and beginning of the next inhale which offers us tens of thousands of opportunities every day to touch in on and hover in that space in between, that moment of unknown and infinite possibility. Here we can remember that we don’t have to figure it all out or have a master plan (those never seem to go according to plan anyhow), but instead practice just being. here. now. (Thank you, Ram Dass.)
These built-in moments of pause can also be viewed as moments of rest. I am as resistant to rest as anyone, but even I have come to understand the value of intentional (longer than a milli-second) periods of rest. It is in the rest and stillness in which the often overstimulated sympathetic nervous system takes a chill pill and the parasympathetic nervous system steps in to help us restore that deep connection to our most essential self, to our Truth so that we don’t have to try so damn hard and instead from a place of faith, trust, and knowing can “just respond” truthfully to each present moment.
Krystal Barschig 